Roller grill assemblies for cooking human food, such as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,393,971, have a group of heated rollers upon which food such as hot dogs, wieners, bratwurst, sausage, ground meat and the like can be cooked. Drawings from U.S. Pat. No. 6,393,971 are shown in FIGS. 1 and 2 hereof. Preferably temperatures of 140° F. are required for sanitation for the center of the product cooked upon the roller tubes.
The setting required to obtain the temperature of 140° F. for the center of product varies, for example, because of variance in product size, the constituency of the product, and whether there is a cover over the product, such as a sneeze guard. Control systems for controlling the temperature of tubes in roller grills have been employed, such as shown in U.S. Pat. No. 6,707,015 B2. U.S. Pat. No. 6,707,015, a drawing of which is shown in FIG. 3 hereof, discloses the use of sensors, such as thermistors encased in stainless steel, located between the ends of a pair of rollers and spaced therefrom.
FIG. 4 shows a prior art arrangement wherein a sensing device in the form of a thermistor within a steel jacket 20 is located to be spaced from the interior surface 22 of a roller tube 24, and spaced from a heating element 26. The thermistor 20 is thus surrounded by air. FIG. 4 also shows supporting brackets 28 and 30 for the heating element 26. A sealing bearing 32 is mounted to a housing wall 34, and about tube 24, with an O-ring 36 within an annular groove of bearing 32. Another O-ring 38 is to the interior of bearing 32.
Corresponding reference characters indicate corresponding parts throughout the several views of the drawings.